Contests
Once per turn during your Free Phase, if either player is “in Pursuit,” you can initiate a Contest of Honor, Skill, or Might (your choice) between your Active Heroes and your foe’s Active Heroes.
When a card effect refers to a “Battle,” that’s the same thing as a Contest of Might.
There are five steps to a Contest:
- Gather Participants
- One-by-one Comparison(s)
- Totaling up Honor, Skill, or Might to determine the winner
- To the Victor the Spoils!
- Recover from the Contest
Normally, a Contest is participated in by all Active Heroes from both sides. However, a few cards specifically exclude themselves from Contests, exclude other cards from Contests, or react to a Contest initiation to add themselves as Participants.
Both players use these effects to determine what cards will be their Participants, gather all Participants into a face-down pile, and shuffle it.
While Participants are face-down in a pile, they are temporarily considered not to be Active.
Each player reveals their first Contest Participant, and the two are compared with each other using their Honor, Skill, or Might score, as determined by the type of the Contest.
If there is a tie, both cards are set aside “stunned” (turned sideways). Otherwise, the higher card is set aside intact, while the lower card is “stunned.”
In an Honor Contest, just one comparison is done, and the one comparison determines the winner and loser (if any) of the Contest. In a Skill or Might Contest, the Comparison process continues until one player or the other runs out of Participants.
In a Skill or Might Contest, the winner and loser (if any) are determined by totaling up the Participants’ total Skill or total Might. Stunned cards do not count towards these totals.
Honor Contests
The winner gets to view their foe’s cards in Hand (representing learning their foe’s intentions through negotiation), and select two cards to be shuffled and placed on top of the foe’s Deck.
Skill Contests
The winner gets to Invest 1.
Battles (Might Contests)
The winner gets to select one of their opponent’s Battle Participants to Discard.
In Case of Ties
When a Contest is a tie (based on the Honor comparison or the Skill Total or Might Total comparison), both players get to take the action that a winner would take.
Any cards Stunned in the Contest are no longer Stunned. Unless a card directs otherwise, Participants that were added to the Contest via SUPPORT effects are Discarded (just like any other SUPPORT effect), while other Participants go back to where they were before (e.g. played Heroes go back to the Active Heroes area).